The secrets of successful business management from Vyacheslav An

What is a successful manager in a crisis? How to be able to not only withstand the turbulence of time and stay afloat but also expand the business while maintaining the motivation of employees.

Vyacheslav An - general manager for the development and implementation of innovations in the cosmetology clinic "Charm" - the man who is worth talking about. He had a fantastic experience, which allowed him to raise the clinic family business to a highly respected level.

Vyacheslav An was born June 20, 1969, in the Soviet Union - in Uzbekistan in a family of repressed Koreans who was deported in 1937. In childhood, Vyacheslav, like all children, dreamed a lot, but it was impossible to assume that his work would be associated with aesthetic medicine and cosmetology because, at that time, such a profession did not exist in principle.

Vyacheslav An

Vyacheslav An's father was engaged in developments for the automotive industry. He created a world of innovations, inventions, and novelties of scientific discoveries around his son. This inspired the future successful manager in the development and implementation of innovations. He also dreamed of inventing and implementing new ideas, experimenting, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems that no one could solve before him. Therefore, it is not surprising that during his school studies, Vyacheslav paid much attention to mathematics and physics. After graduation in 1986, he entered Novosibirsk Electro-Technical Institute at the Faculty of Automation of Computer Engineering, specializing in "Computing machines, systems, and networks."

However, in 1991, Vyacheslav had to forget about studies for the sake of work to survive in a crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, he had no idea how much he would have to learn on his career path.

For ten years, beginning in 1991, Vyacheslav An worked at "Promservice," which worked in the coal and gold mining industry. During these years, Vyacheslav An managed to work in different positions and go the way from an ordinary worker to the head of a large enterprise. It was the time when the old Soviet enterprise had to be "put on a new track" to make its work correspond to the emerging market economy. It was an asterisk task and demanded high organizational skills, stress resistance, and readiness to develop and implement new approaches in the shortest possible time. Vyacheslav's flexibility of thinking allowed for a large-scale transformation of the company under constant external changes, inflation, volatility, and all kinds of social upheavals, which became an unforgettable training in developing and implementing innovations at all levels of the organization. This required self-discipline and iron willpower, but Vyacheslav saw change as an opportunity rather than a challenge. This approach helped him earn a reputation as a responsible and enterprising employee for whom there are no impossible tasks.

For someone will be valuable experience and vision of Vyacheslav An, general manager for the development and implementation of innovations in cosmetology, on how not to give up and continue development in times of crisis. And what traits should a successful manager have?

Vyacheslav An: A successful manager is a universal soldier. And his competencies in any industry are universal. It does not matter if a manager works in finance, real estate, FMCG, or aesthetic medicine. He will have deadlines, a budget, and a team to lead to the result and to set the business on track for growth and development. But it's not enough - he also can't be effective without management and communication skills.

When a business is experiencing high uncertainty and turbulence during a crisis, project management skills are more often useful for a manager. Any crisis is like a project. It has a beginning and end; there are tasks and solutions, and new solutions or innovations are often required. That's why project management approaches come in handy as never before. The ability to properly assess resources and see their interchangeability, for example. Look, when clinics closed during the covid period - what happened? The usual ratio of money-time-people-quality shifted: money became scarce, and time and staff - were in abundance. It is time to improve quality and bring to the ideal aspects you could not get to because of the turnover. If you use resources rationally, the crisis will be more manageable.

And also about soft skills at crucial moments. They are more in demand than ever during a crisis. During this period, empathy, the ability to understand the other person's feelings to support them, is very important.

The pandemic and strict quarantine restrictions exacerbated the psychological problems. But our clinic staff was prepared for this. Several years ago, I introduced a mandatory course of introduction to psychology for all "Charm" staff, designed to take into account patients' behavior before and after procedures, working with expectations, acceptance of oneself, and much more. Now we have no problems with conflicts within the team or with patients. This helps maintain a positive atmosphere at work, which is especially valuable today.

To make the most of our free time during the crisis lull, we replaced the CRM system during the lockdown. We also re-examined our patent developments, reviewed treatment protocols, and began work on innovative new procedures. We also took advantage of the clinic's operating pause to analyze the range of services and products we offer to other cosmetology clinics and professionals. It was the perfect time to do so.

2014 was a difficult year for the economy, but for our clinic, it was an important year in terms of understanding the direction of our company. I want to note that we went through the crisis filigree. As a result, we revised our business processes, made them more efficient, increased the number of clients, and expanded the range of services. We opened a new branch, "Charm," in Novosibirsk. Moreover, based on our clinic opened a regional center for thread lifting, "Aptos - Siberia." Marlen Sulamanidze, an internationally recognized plastic surgeon and the author of Aptos methodology, cut the ribbon.